X FACTOR contestants are being plied with free booze in a bid to ramp up the sex and scandal in this year's series.

And cameras will be in finalists' bedrooms 24 HOURS A DAY on Simon Cowell's orders to make sure viewers get to gawp at every alcohol-fuelled grope.

I suppose that this is meant to be "publicity" of the good sort, but from where I'm sitting it sounds a bit like ITV trying to get vulnerable young people drunk to film them having sex. Even R Kelly's got beyond that sort of behaviour.